HAWAII 71 SMU 59

[ALEX LIFESON]

NM

[ALEX LIFESON]

When you have starters out, you hope others step up their game. I would say Pearson was the only one to answer the bell, he had a game high 24. Castro was 5 of 21. We were down by 25 at one point in the second half.

[Pony_Fan]

This was to be expected. Let's hope Hopkins and Roberts can get back in the near future or it's going to be a long season.

Funny how Pearson can get 24 pts...maybe he thought "I have to score tonight"

[Hoop Fan]

It was 46-23 at the half, so the final score is misleading. SMU was not competitive. Its really disappointing that our 3 seniors can't mount more of a resistance at least for a half, even without Hopkins. Sounds like Pearson stepped up, but all the stats are somewhat meaningless because the whole second half was garbage time. The stat that continues to not be meaningless is that Hawaii killed us on the boards 40-33 (just a 20% difference!) and it was probably worse than that.

[EastStang]

I don't know the answer. What underclassmen to we have to step up inside the paint? Castro is more suited to power forward than center. Simpson is probably in the right position. We have essentially three guards and two forwards and no center. It is no wonder we get beat on the boards by big teams. Reay might need to see some minutes against big teams, but you trade that off by losing Isham's scoring potential. Perhaps you can late in the game do some rotating where Reay comes in as much as possible for defense while Isham comes in for offensive possessions, its not an exact science, but teams like Duke and UNC seems to pull it off without much problem.

[gostangs]

Isham and Simpson always disappear when it matters - they have been disappointing given their potential. that said - we will beat Hawaii in Dallas - they are REALLY tough to beat over there -